Character strengths, life satisfaction and orientations to happiness - a study of the Nordic countries

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Health promotion and positive psychology both focus on the positive aspects of health, and share a view in which the prevention of health problems are as important as repairing damage. Whereas much is known about how to promote physical health, research is now also emerging on how to promote mental health. One way of elevating mental well-being, is through focusing on personal virtues and character strengths. This study used data collected from the Authentic Happiness web site, and investigated different aspects of the relative prevalence of the VIA character strengths in the Nordic countries (N = 1601). The main findings indicated six categories of character strengths, which in part correspond to the theoretical classification of the strengths. The most commonly endorsed strengths were curiosity, fairness, judgment, love, and love of learning. The countries showed converging strengths profiles. Some small differences were found between the genders and the different age groups. In general women scored higher on the strengths than men, and typically scores increased with age. Hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity were robustly associated with subjective well-being. The character strengths turned out to be highly predictive of subjective well-being, explaining 51.6% of the total variance after demographic variables had been accounted for. In this sample, only meaning turned out to be significantly related to subjective well-being, whereas the other orientations to happiness, engagement and pleasure, were not. These results may have implications for future research of virtues and strengths in positive psychology, and for health promotion practice.